The present disclosure herein relates to a reagent storage device and a bio-reaction apparatus including the same, and more particularly, to a reagent storage device capable of storing a plural kinds of reagents and a bio-reaction apparatus including the same.
A biochip for easily and rapidly diagnostic-analyzing a biological sample has been developed. A method for biochip analysis includes a method in which only the biological sample is injected and a method in which a plural kinds of reagents are sequentially injected. Although the former method is simple, which is regarded as an advantage, it may not be applied to diagnostic analysis requiring a complex biochemical reaction. The latter method has an advantage in which a complex reaction may be performed to be applied to various analysis protocols and a disadvantage in which a complex driving device for storing and supplying a reagent is necessary.
When recent trend for biochip development is reviewed, a high functional biochip having high sensitiveness, quantification, reproducibility, and multi-element simultaneous analysis is required to build a mainstream. Also, a lab-on-a-chip-type biochip capable of sequentially performing sample pretreatment, analysis, and measurement in a single chip has been developed. As described above, the complex reaction protocol needs to be realized with reproducibility so as to develop the high functional lab-on-a-chip-type biochip, which may be realized by sequential, quantified, and automatic supply of the reagent.
Until now, in most of lab-on-a-chip, a necessary reagent is stored at the outside of the chip and supplied to the lab-on-a-chip by using an external pumping device. The above-described method for storing and supplying the reagent has a problem in which the external device may be complex and huge in size. Although the lab-on-a-chip on which a micro-pump is installed has been developed to remove the external pumping device, a complex process and additional costs are required to install the micro-pump on the chip, the micro-pump on the chip is difficult to be integrated with other components, and furthermore the reagent is still not stored therein.
To overcome the above-described problems, a few techniques for storing the reagent on the conventional lab-on-a-chip have been suggested. First, a chamber for storing the reagent is installed on the chip, the reagent is injected therein, and then the chamber is sealed. In this case, a reagent injection hole and a fine passage connected to the storage chamber need to be sealed, which is mainly realized by using a micro-valve or a phase change material. However, a process and a control operation for opening/closing the fine passage is rather complex. As an alternative method, a method for attaching a pouch-type reagent storage onto the chip is provided. In this case, the pouch is pressed to be attached to the chip by a manual method or using a mechanical device. This method has a problem in which reproducibility of flow rate may be reduced when the reagent is supplied and additional mechanical control is required.
As described above, to store the reagent, the reagent supply having homeostasis maintenance of the reagent, realization at low costs, simple operation, and reproducibility is required. However, the related art has a limitation to satisfy the above-described requirement conditions.